The Denstonian.
JUNE,
1915.
No.
234.
EDITORIAL.
T is with a feeling of deep regret
that we publish with this number
a heavy casualty list of Old
Denstonians; for within the last
few weeks the War has been brought very
near to us by the deaths in action of
several O.Ds. who have only been privileged to the title for a very short time.
Our sincerest sympathy is extended to
their families and relations.
The War has also taken from us one of
our masters who w i l l be sorely missed both
in the class-room and on parade. We
hope to see Mr. Coleman again when
VOL.
X X X I X .
No 3.
brighter days return, but for the present
he holds a Captaincy in the 9th Service
Battalion, N. Staffs.' Regt. Mr. Whitley
has gone to Loretto. Our bsst wishes go
with both of them.
Meanwhile the term is passing rapidly,
as most summer terms do, but without
many of its institutions which perforce
have to be abandoned. The most serious
of these are perhaps the prospect of no
camp at the end, and the abandoning of
the Public Schools' Bisley Meeting, which
comes as a heavy blow to our marksmen
after last year's success at the Gale and
Polden competition.
However, the cricket fixture list shows
a brighter side, for we have before us the
prospect of twelve matches. The team,
4
THE
6
young and inexperienced as it is, has
already shown itself capable of doing great
things, and we wish them every success
for the re^t of the season.
STRUMMINGS
By
OF
F.
The
A
Bonham
Lover's
LYRE.
Burr.
Prayer.
Lord, I am thine ; there is no tiling
That I can give ;
Thou canst demand my all for Thee,
And in a moment take from me
This life I live.
But,
Lord, within this frame of mine
There dwells a soul :
And forth it wanders day by day
Along the rough uneven way
Towards the goal.
Lord, I am thine ; but next to Thee
There's one I love :
So beautiful in everv sense,
As to approach the innocence
Of stars above.
Lord,
there is longing in Thy heart,
And so in mine ,*
Send down Thv blessings on our love,
And bring us to Thy Heaven above,
And make us Thine.
Cricket
Tips.
Take a pair of cricket " specs,"
Mingled,
ever and anon.
With an ordinary
"duck."
Be most careful to annex
Bats belonging to a " don."—
Take an " Autograph " for luck.
Take your guard
at middle peg,
Such as all the bloods advise
(Be particular in this) ;
Take a slog at those to leg ;
Let the wide ones go for byes ;
But the straight ones never miss.
Take my tips, if you're a man—
Act upon them, if you can!
DENSTONIAN.
MEXICO
By
TO-DAY.
Handle Ball,
O.D.
If it were not for being so miserably out
of the War, and feeling such a rabbit when
everyone I know at home is in it, I should
not regret being in this benighted country
of revolution and counter-revolution. \ y
have plenty of work, indeed we are one of
the few foreign companies which have any
work, or rather which are allowed to work
just at present, and, what is more, I find it
very interesting.
Of course, apart from
the work, every day brings forth something exciting
If it is not the i .
glorious abandonment of the city by one
party and the triumphant entry of another,
or the appointment of a new President, and
the flight of the old (with fifteen millions
of pesos !) it is the publication of a decree
such as the one which came out to-day.
It decrees a general extraordinary tax on
all capital, mortgages, lands, employments,
patent rights, vehicles, etc., and applies
both to natives and to foreigners. The tax
has to be paid within three days, and the
object is asserted to be " the assistance of
the suffering poor."
Immediately this decree of General
Alvaro Obregon, commander of the Army
in the North-West appeared, all the foreign
banks sealed up their safes and vaults, and
handed their keys over to their respective
Legations.
We now await developments,
but both they and every foreign company
in the city are resolved to see this matter
through as a body, and I imagine that the
Government are very little likely to see
any of their money.
Things, are, indeed,
rapidly approaching the limit. Last week,
five days notice was given to all the
Catholic clergy to stump up half-a-million
pesos. Of course they could not do it, and
since last Friday every Catholic priest in
e
n
JUNE,
the city has been in jail. No one knows
from day to day what the morrow will
bring forth.
Since I came out here twelve months
a , there have been five Presidents of this
truly democratic country.
Incidentally,
Mexico City has been deposed from its
position of capital, and Vera Cruz has
been chosen as the place where the
present " Presidente Interino " holds his
court. The obvious explanation of the
change is that from Vera Cruz the difficulty of embarkation is comparatively
slight, and thus the spoils of his most
righteous attempt to work out the salvation of his country (I use the language of
the beloved President Wilson) may be
more easily removed.
The most serious recent decree before
the one I have mentioned, was to the effect
that every oil well in the petroliferous
region of Tampico must be shut down,
and to-day, the only Company that is
working there is the Aguila Oil Company,
on which the British Admiralty depends to
a very large extent.
There are many
stories that attempts have been made to
shut down the wells of this Company also,
but at any rate they failed.
It is good to
feel that these people, who have grown so
accustomed to [saying and doing exactly
what they please with Washington, still
have a wholesome dread of the British
Admiralty.
How one longs for just a
battalion of English Tommies to clear up
the scum of the earth from this country,
and to teach these unwashed " peons"
(with rifles dating back to the year 1), the
lesson of their lives !
In San Angel, a suburb some ten miles
out of Mexico, where I attempt to live,
we have a battle almost every day.
One
week the Government, or so-called Government, will hold the place, and the next
&
0
1915.
the Japatistas from the hills. Strange to
say the Japatistas are the best of the lot.
At any rate they have some sense of order
and behave something like Christians.
They are not strong enough by themselves,
unfortunately, and can only really take
the city and hold it when Mr. Villa, from
the North, gives them a helping hand. But
their battles are sometimes exciting, especially when the shells from such guns as
they possess begin to drop around. On
Sunday morning one fell in the garden,
just outside my bedroom, but most
obligingly failed to explode. Whenever
fighting is more severe than usual, when,
for instance, one side or the other evacuates
the village, and the others came in, the cars
to the city are cut off and the situation
becomes more than a joke.
Then you
have to take your choice between staying
in the city and working, or staying in San
Angel and having a holiday. As I have an
uneasy conscience, I have usually stayed
in the city.
The first time the situation
arose, I did the tramp in and out for five
days in succession, but then it began to pall,
so for the rest of the time I stayed in the
city.
WAR
NEWS.
We are able to give a reproduction
of the sketch which caused the arrest
of C. F. W. Haseldine, as related in our
last number. The churchj of which the
tower remains, had been bombarded by
the Germans, and the bridge which had
just been repaired when the sketch
was made, had been blown up by the
Germans when they were driven out of the
town. It was the scene of a fierce fight, at
which a V.C. was won.
4
8
stormy indeed. Our old tub has rocked
about so much that it was almost impossible to lie in one's bunk and every moment
we thought the old thing would roll an inch
too much, and not come up again.
At
other times it has been stiflingly hot. The
men are very cheery, and seem to regard
the whole show as part of a game got up
for their special benefit, which I can assure
you it is not, being perhaps one of the
biggest undertakings of the war."
In the landing operations he was, we are
sorry to say, wounded.
M. Spicer (Plymouth Batt. R.M. Special
Service Force) says:
" I cannot tell you where'we are or what
we are doing, but I can assure you I shall
have some thrilling stories to tell you when
I get back to England. We lost 48 out of
our 500 men, killed and wounded the other
day, but have been fortunate enough not to
lose an officer. We have had a great variety
of weather, and at times it has been very
J. M. Benoy writes:
" I got hit on Monday in the attack on
Festubert or Richebourg l'Avoue, or whatever they call it.
Our battalion attacked
on the Sunday at 3 a.m. My platoon was
the leading platoon of the lot, so you can
guess that I felt somewhat nervy before
the start. W i t h the help of some bomb
throwers, we got into the German trenches
with quite few losses; myself first over the
parapet, untouched. After that, we worked
along the length of the German trench,
in which I captured with my platoon of 50
men, some 54 Bosches and two officers.
Finally, our company gained possession of
a further 600 yards of trench over and
above the amount we were due to capture,
and also a further 150 prisoners, including
two machine guns.
The remainder of
Sunday we spent consolidating our position.
My platoon, unfortunately, had been
reduced to half its strength; two sergeants
out of three placed hors de combat, but
myself—ungrazed.
No counter-attack
came during the night. The next day we
were ordered to continue our advance, and
I was picked off by a maxim in trying to
cross an open space between two lines of
trenches.
" I lay out in the open for two hours
49
with a stretcher bearer, who, regardless of
himself, tended my wound.
I was carried
out later, but stayed in our trenches till
evening, as I wanted to see how successful we°had been. At night I journeyed to
Bethune, thence on here to a hospital
which before the war was a training
ground for young clergymen.
I had X
rays and a little operation on Friday to
remove the bullet and some foreign matter,
but no permanent injury has been done,
and all I have to do now is to rest and get
well again."
H. Jacks, W. H a l l and H. W. Beck have
also been wounded, and are in England.
The following are extracts from E. R.
Wood's letter of April 30th :
" We have been moved about considerably just lately.
Fighting has been taking place all around us, though we actually
have not been in it yet, being in the centre,
with scrapping on both sides.
We were
very abruptly called away from our four
days rest on the third day, when the French
were practically driven back by those
beastly fumes. They even affected us, IA
miles behind the firing line, as a strong wind
blew them across ; even there tears came
into our eyes, caused by the gas ; we could
well imagine what it was like in front.
We could see dense masses of greenishyellow fumes coming across; it was the
first day of the attack, when the Germans
succeeded in pushing back the lines a little
way.
We moved further up and spent
two nights in the open in support, with
shells falling all around us, but none actually on the spot where we lay.
I have a
" souvenir," a piece of shell some two ins.
long, which took a chunk out of my walking
poles, which I use for feeling my way
through the woods at night ; this shell
burst about 100 yds. off, so you can see
how far the pieces fly on explosion.
The
fighting round here seems to be by no
means over, our guns have been at it all
day, and the Germans have been plonking
a few more of their 17 in. into the town,
which is now completely razed to the
ground by shells or fire.
Some of the
fellows are very amusing in their attitude
towards the war; it doesn't seem to worry
them much. In the midst of a burst of
rapid fire with maxims blazing away 360
to the minute, some chap remarks " Eh lad,
there seems to be a war going on somewhere !" Our regiment so far has not been
working as a battalion, but has been
attached to the other regiments, one company to one, and one to another, to make
up their strength t i l l they get a draft out.
Some of our company were very highly
complimented for their conduct by the
C O . of the Leinsters, when a shrapnel
burst in the trenches, and he even went so
far as to recommend one for the D.C.M.
There is some very good stuff amongst
them.
I shall be very glad when we do
some work together as a battalion. Some
have completely broken down with nerves,
but the cases are few, people keep dwindling off to hospital; my platoon has been
reduced by half, what with casualties and
hospital cases."
Capt. Jacks was among those who were
hit in the heavy fighting about April 26th.
He wrote the following account of it to
Monica Hibbert:
3°4-15" You w i l l be sorry to hear that those
nasty Germans have sent a piece of shell
from a big gun into my foot.
This
happened last Monday.
I had not even
time to get a helmet with a spike on it. I
saw one or two on dead Germans, but did
5°
not touch them, as I thought you would
prefer one taken from a real live German.
" Perhaps you would like a description
of what it looks like to have shells flying
about. W e l l , it's like this. Have you
ever noticed on a windy day little clouds
blown across the blue sky ?
The shell,
when it bursts looks just like this. As
soon as the cloud comes you hear something like a hailstorm - t h i s is the pellets
and pieces of shell coming down to the
ground. When this is over you look round
and see here and there men lying about
some spread out like an eagle, and others
bunched up like a sack of oats ; this shows
that some of the soldiers have been
wounded. Then you see men with a white
band with a red cross on it, running in and
out, picking the wounded up. I hope to
come over and see you when my foot is
better."
As a matter of fact the real thing was
very different, and his own men give the
following account of his conduct. One of
his Lance-Corporals said :
" Captain Jacks was wonderful; a shell
landed close to him and blew off his cap
and broke his glasses; he went on, and
next a shrapnel bullet struck him in the leg ;
still he went on with the first line, until at
last he had to give up exhausted. Oh ! the
officers are fine."
Other men said that when Captain Jacks
had to give in he called out " Go on, boys !
keep going on, don't mind me.'' Captain
Mail, whom I met later, said that he saw
Captain Jacks when the shell burst beside
him. H i s cap flew one way, his glasses
another, and he was simply smothered
from head to foot with earth. His eyes,
nose, mouth, eyebrows and hair were full
of it, and he came tumbling into a " Jack
Johnson" hole, where the others were
lying, complaining that he could'nt find his
specs. Captain Mail saw him later passing
by with the stretcher bearers, as cheerful
as you like, his chief anxiety being how to
get his valise home."
Roger Wain wrote at Easter :
" Thank you very much for your delightful letter and the card.
They were very
welcome, as I often look back, especially
from here, to the glorious days I had at
Denstone, and your letter bucked me up
quite " some lump " as our Canadian^
friends say out here. We are really having
quite a good time out here, compared with
what people have suffered during the winter
and the weather seems to have decided to
be more or less permanently settled.
" Our work is very iiiieresting as we do
get about and see things, and we feel more
or less free when we are out. Of course
the roads here are positively awful, owing
to the heavy motor transport, and they cannot be repaired as that would impede the
transport, which, although very much
retarded by the narrowness and condition
of the roads, is extraordinarily efficient^
The pave with which all main roads are
done, is very treacherous when wet, and
the only thing to do is to go fairly fast, and
trust to luck.
We, the motor cyclists,
have a deal more to fear from road accidents, than from rifle or gun fire, although
the snipers at night are a little troublesome.
'• It seems hardly credible that a lot of
the civil population out here are positively
hostile to us, and these are the people who
do the sniping.
I hear of an old woman,
who had a rifle and a plentiful supply of
ammunition in a milk churn, who accounted
for at least fifteen so-diers on various
occasions before she was detected.
She
was about sixty years old, and fired on
troops passing.
When her house was
searched the poor thing sat rocking herself
JUNE,
hefore the fire, saying ' me tres malade,
tres malade.'
She was eventually
" L ^ h t by someone hiding in her house.
«°The food here is quite good really, but
of course there are many people who grouse
l l day about everything, and hence the
harrowing stories you hear in England. It
is a privilege in the army to be able to
erouse on every occasion, but one should
not let the O.C. hear, except when he is
in an exceptionally good temper.
" I a m getting quite a useful hand at
cooking, but of course everyone thinks that
he can cook, but if you saw some of the
samples, you would, I am sure, be very
amused. It is a bit of a limit when one
cannot differentiate between the bacon and
the eggs at breakfast time. Do not think
we always have eggs, as they are such a
terrific price. On the aforesaid occasion
the ' chef' was most annoyed when someone suggested he was not exactly Mrs.
Beeton.
" The people are very mean. When the
Germans were here they were apparently
very well behaved, and did not in a good
many cases even turn the people out of
their beds, but slept on the floors,—but, add
the people, ' they never paid us.'
Our
landlord, the owner of the loft we sleep
in, was purple with rage the other day
because each man took a bucket of water
to wash in. Preposterous ! But, having
since seen him make his ablutions, I quite
understand his attitude.
" The great joy out here, if one is asked
to do or refrain from doing something, by
the natives, is to feign complete ignorance
of the language.
This we have caught
from the people, who can be very thickheaded, except where money is concerned,
at which times they are very sharp and
exceedingly polite.
When our men are
resting after a spell in the trenches, they
a
1915.
5i
spend their time cleaning and straightening
up the roads, and I assure you that the war
has been a positive Godsend to the sanitary
arrangements in this part of France.
" I was very very sorry to hear of
Walker's death, as he was a great friend
of mine at school. We however, cannot
realize it out here, to the same extent as
you do. I met F. C. White the other day:
he has been out here since October, and
was looking very well, clean and happy.
His hair was most beautifully parted, in
fact he was quite ' i t . ' "
C. Riley Watson writes as follows from
H.M.S. Myugs:—
" I have fallen in with a splendid lot of
men and am very happy here. Of course
at first everything was very new and I felt
rather like a " new boy'' at school—sure
I was doing the wrong thing and saluting
the wrong people—but I have quite
settled down now.
As you can imagine, very little room is
wasted on board a destroyer—I have no
cabin—I sleep on a somewhat lumpy couch
in the ward room where the stern gun's
crew also sleep when we are at sea. These
boats are very thin plated and have very
powerful engines, so the vibration is pretty
awful. It is that more than the rolling
which makes you rush to the taffrail every
now and then to be violently i l l . My great
consolation is that even gold-braided Commanders, who have been to sea all their
lives, very often feel even worse than I do.
471 is really a jolly good number, I was
sure that the College would be well represented—I only hope that they w i l l all be
lucky and come safely back. Up to now
I have not seen a German, but I hope we
shall get a cut in at them soon."
F. B. Perkins wrote at the end of
March:
52
THE
" A few days ago I rode over to Ypres,
and if I go there again will send you some
p.cs. of the ruins. Its simply too terrible
for words.
The wreck is so universal
that after a few hours in Ypres a ruined
house ceases to interest one, there are so
many. The Cloth H a l l and Cathedral are
both chaotic heaps of masonry, out of
which the shell of their original walls rise.
No roofs, the little towers of the Cloth
H a l l now irregular and scarred needles,
windows denuded of glass. The rose window in the Cathedral is simply a circular
hole, such as a shell might make. In the
midst of the Cathedral, where the arms
branch, there is a huge heap of debris,
some 40 feet high. The monuments are
either scarred or lying in atoms on the
ground; the altar is simply a marble base
surrounded by the dust of its former
beauty. The windows in the western part
are fairly well preserved, but this is quite
the exception. I went up to the top of a
tower where some workmen are repairing
some of the ruins, I suppose to render
them safer, and saw two shells drop in.
Apart from the ruin Ypres is a most
cheerful spot, crowded with our own and
French troops, shops selling all kinds of
things, and everybody as if it were on holiday. The inhabitants do not worry at all
about shells. You see them scuttling out of
a farm that's being shelled, but when the
shelling is over they go back again. It's
all very sad ; one poor old woman was
gathering the remains of a bed of onions,
a shell had plumped in the middle and she
just had a few square feet left. I think it
is a stoic indifference born of their utter
destitution that keeps them in the danger
area. They are an unmitigated nuisance
and an extremely filthy people, and not
too obliging. You see they are so fussy
about grazing and the use of their lands.
DENSTONIAN.
W e l l , we have got to keep our horses fit,
and we have got to have battery positions.
If a battery has to come into action in the
middle of a corn field and dig itself in they
have got to lump it. This may sound
very callous, but one gets callous here.
Feelings and imaginations are superfluous,
and have to be suppressed."
W. Gilling wrote on
22nd
March,
" Very many thanks to all for your
Christmas Greeting Card received some
little while ago. It came as a very pleasant
surprise. Verily, from the list of names
contained therein, the old College is playing
no small part in the greatest drama the
world has yet witnessed. I am not allowed
to tell you where I am, but my address is
C Coy., 14th Batt. Rifle Brigade, 80th Infantry Brigade. 27th Division, British
Expeditionary Force.
I think I may toll
you that we are where the fighting has
been hottest for the last fortnight or so,
and you must guess the remainder.
This
must be a lovely bit of country in time
of peace, and primroses, etc., give indication
that Spring is at hand.
" If I last through, then I intend giving
myself the pleasure of a look at the '• old
place," when the war is o'er.
Remember,
I had eleven years in the East till this
picnic got in the way.
" One thing I must say, we are well fed
and clothed, and everything that ingenuity
and forethought can do to alleviate the
inevitable hardships of a winter campaign
is done.
" W e l l , I will close now, by wishing all
O.D.s (and the present edition) a happy
Eastertide, and may say, that if all are as
fit as I am they will be more trouble to the
butcher and baker than to the doctor.
Good luck to all.''
53
He has been through the fighting at
Neuve Chapelle, S. Eloi, H i l l 60, and the
second battle of Ypres. It was at the lastnamed on May 8th, that he got put out of
action.
He says : " A shell shattered my
rifle and cut my hand open, and while I
was having the wound dressed, another
shell burst near, blowing me some yards,
cutting my forehead open and just missing
my eyes, and knocking me unconscious.
A poor chap just on my left was blown to
bits by the same shell. It was simply a
deluge of shells and how any of us lived
through it is a marvel. It was a near thing.
They simply poured column after column
of troops at us, supported by a hellish
artillery fire, but our boys stuck it and—
well, they didn't get through.
We got to
grips with them with the steel several times,
a proceeding which friend Hans doesn't
altogether approve of, judging by the way
he remembers he has an important engagement elsewhere when he hears our boys
yelling." His letter is full of reminiscences
of Denstone, and he asks : " Do you still
have a Play ?" I am still a lover of Shakespeare, and those last lines of Henry V's
speech before Agincourt seem to apply to a
lot of stay-at-home youths to-day :—
" And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they
were 'not
here,
And hold their
manhoods cheap while
any
speaks
That fought with
us
upon
Saint Crispin's Day
"
C. Venables says:—
" Until just recently, an O.D. has been
Chaplain to our Brigade. I am referring
to B. K. Bond, who, I am sorry to say, has
left us to go to the Dardanelles. We all
miss him much as he was absolutely
beloved by officers and men alike. I am sure
he will be very successful in the fighting
line."
The following was received on May 2nd,
I9I5-
\
" Thank you and Mrs. Hibbert very
much for your kind Easter wishes. We
greatly appreciate such wishes out here,
especially coming from our old School.
" I am afraid I have been somewhat
long in answering your last letter, but just
lately we have been working against time
in preparing for the heavy fighting
which we expect to get very soon. The
last two or three days the artillery on our
left has been firing incessantly, but up to
the present we have received no news as to
what has been taking place.
" Up to the present we have been
working in four day " shifts,"—that is to
say, we go up to the trenches for four days
and on being relieved we go down to a
village about three miles behind the line.
There we indulge in what is called four
days rest. I am afraid that for the last few
weeks the four days at the village have
been days of rest only by name—instead,
we have been doing fatigues up to the firing
line practically every night.
" My health record has been very good
indeed all through the campaign and I
must put this down to the healthy open-air
life I lived at Denstone the two years I was
there ! Of course, no end of our fellows
"went down" with frost bite and other
customary winter complaints, but I personally have not had to attend " sick parade "
since mobilization.
" I saw E. R. Wood and H. S. Bates
about a fortnight ago—they, as I expect
you already know, both have commissions
in the Cambridgeshire Territorials. I did
not know them well enough to speak to, but
Sergeant Atkins told me that he spoke to
Wood.
" The Germans have brought up one of
their huge seventeen inch guns to bombard
54
THE
DENSTONJAN.
a certain large town, and, although we are
quite four miles distant, we can hear the
roar of the shell as it whistles through the
air, and the noise it makes in bursting is
something indescribable.
We are all
hoping it will not pay any attentions to our
rest village or our trenches !
" I expect term will just be beginning
when my letter reaches you, and it is quite
unnecessary to say how I wish I was still
at Denstone.
" I am sending this home to pater in my
weekly letter.
He said he wished to
write and thank you as well.
I remain,
Yours sincerely,
F. E. CLARK."
C. G. Salmon in a letter dated May 22nd
writes:—
" I was very bucked to receive your letter
last night about 9.30 p.m., just as we,
another officer and myself, had finished our
evening meal of eggs, buttered toast, and
cocoa.
" T h e only thing to do now-a-days is to
get well underground until its time to rush
and then rush with a vengeance ; when
you've captured the German first, second,
or third line, get under as soon as possible,
or the Bogie man will have you sure as
fate. In the Foresters and in other regiments now well-seasoned, we have a perfectly flat parapet, and a very thick one
too ; here and there we have iron spy-hole
plates let in at almost ground level, and any
sniping is done through them. We use
nothing but box periscopes for observation,
up to 150 yards.
" Sitting now in a little palatial dug-out,
1 am 800 yards away from the nearest H u n ,
which is quite a comfortable distance ; in
our last trenches my platoon held a railway
foot 15 yards away.
" The ist Battalion have had another go
and all the officers left are Capt. Waits
and two Subalterns: 3 killed, 10 wounded,
1 missing and 500 casualties! We ar
short enough of officers in all conscience ; I
am second in command of ' D ' Company.
" The weather to-day is extraordinaril
h o t ; far too hot to fight. Our neighbour
opposite seem to think the same, as the
is hardly any noise going, not even th
inevitable artillery duel.
" W i t h regard to the above Railway P'oot
the first day everything was quiet t i l l th
evening; in the morning I' registered ' wi
some bombs which all landed nicely o
their parapet. In the evening (Oh! M
A u n t ! ) over came trench mortar missiL_
rifle and hand grenades, and other in fernmachines ; of these the' cigar-box " (trenc
mortar missile) was the worst; you coul
see it coming; it would bounce and the
fizz away for six seconds, and then—crunch,
the whole place would rock.
/' " T h e next day they started shelling,
shrapnel, etc., rifle and hand grenades
bombs and cigar-boxes, and last, but n
least, machine guns and rifle fire,
course we all stood to and retaliated, an
then all of a sudden up she went, i.e. a
Gei . . . . nine, and for the next minute down
"came railway lines, lumps of earth as big
as elephants, etc. Luckily it was slightly
short, but it completely buried four of our
fellows and wounded lots more.
" The next day they attacked in small
force with bomb-throwers, but were beaten
off. The day after that we blew up their,
galleries and had some more frightfulness,
knocking theii forward position all sideways. The total result in our company of
those five happy days was two officers
wounded and 30 or 40 other casualties ; I
was one of the lucky, or shall we say
unlucky, ones."
55
The following letter was written by L. G.
Harris the day before he was killed:—
" I am glad all is going so well with the
old Coll. J had a letter from Jameson the
ether day; I am awfully glad to see that
Mr. Swift has been doing such jolly good
work in the schol- line again. I was sorry
to hear about Walker.
I had the O.D.
Chronicle sent out here and perused it with
great interest for many hours.
As for
coming across O.Ds, the only two I have
met, except Atkins and Clark, who are
in our regiment, have been Eric Wood and
H. S. Bates. I came across them about
five weeks ago and had a few minutes conversation with them as we were passing
through the village where they were billeted
on our way up to the trenches. They both
looked jolly fit. Atkins is now a Platoon
Sergt. He has had pretty rapid promotion
as he had only just been made a LanceCorporal when 1 joined the regiment. As
far as news goes it is rather difficult to give
you any except that we have been doing
trench work now for nearly six months and
are pretty well fed up.
In the winter we
had to contend chiefly with floods and cold
in the trenches and we saw mighty little of
the Hun. We fire at him a certain amount
at nights just to let him know we are there,
and in the daytime, if we have loop-holes,
we do a little sniping.
" We are at present below our strength,
and yesterday a draft of men from England
reached us. This draft was afforded rather
a warm welcome. They got here about
five o'clock; at about 5.30 we got two
bursts of shrapnel overhead quite close to
our billets. In accordance with instructions
we all caught hold of rifle and equipment
(I had not time to find my hat), cleared out
of billets as quietly as possible, and made
our way composedly but swiftly across the
fields opposite, away from the direction of
the German lines.
The fields provided
practically no cover, so when the shells
came over we did a jolly quick " flop," getting up again as soon as they had done
their worst and moving on before the next
two came.
We only had eight shells
altogether, but they did a good deal of
damage, killing . (deleted by the Censor).
One of our draft, having been herehalf-anhour, got one in the hand, and another
through hisshoulder; both quite comfortable
wounds. Lucky man ! I hear Salmon is
out here, also Benoy. I wonder if I shall
see them. I shall be very glad to have a
line from you if you have time later."
H. Wolferstan Beck wrote:—
" The Dcnstonian was a great treat, and
arrived when I was in the trenches; also
Mrs. Hibbert's Easter Card, which adorned
the back wall of my " dug-out'' and was
read by me daily.
" The last trenches were so different from
the others I wrote about.
To begin with
the line ran through the resting places of the
dead, and in parts it was impossible to dig
further for fear of disturbing some corpse.
Chloride of lime had to be used in great
quantities to suppress the foul smells of
decaying matter. • The enemy's trenches
were only 60 yards in front, and in between
lay the dead.
Here, the fire was fairly
constant, and I was only able to sleep on
an average three hours in every 24. At
this part of the line the snipers seemed
especially cunning and were up to all kinds
of tricks. They were responsible for four
casualties in our company, two killed and
two wounded ; the two latter being in my
platoon.
" I should very much like to write a
series of articles now that I am in the thick
of things, only I'm so afraid that they would
be of so little interest. The cheap English
56
THE
DENSTONIA N.
papers are one of the things I should like
to expose. They are so obviously unfair in
their criticisms. If only I had a larger
vocabulary and a little more s k i l l !
" I think the four days in the trenches
were well worth it, for it makes one appreciate the four days out. We go in again
to-night, and then I will try and think out
something.
" Please give my love to Mrs. Hibbert
and thank her for the Easter Card. I shall
visit Denstone as soon as I get back, as I'm
longing to see the old place.
H. E. L. Fisher says :—
" I enjoyed myself immensely, two nights
before we were relieved, with some of our
officers in a little movement of our own,
which had a spice of adventure in i t . We
bombed some Germans out of a farmhouse
in front of our position. However, an
advance party of theirs saw us coming and
fired on us.
If they had kept their heads,
instead of blindly loosing off, and then
doing a bunk, they would have knocked us
over. As it was they only scored a miss.
We drove them out—but the blighters only
waited for us to finish our bombs, and then
advanced on us in force and bombed us
back to our lines, Am in splendid health
and happy as a lark."
R. L. Goldsmith, who is a Dispatch
Rider, R.E., (ist Indian Cavalry Division
Signals, c/o India Office, London, S.W.,)
writes on March 28th :—
" I w i l l endeavour to record below some
of my experiences on my way to the front
as a dispatch rider. Leaving my volunteer
corps, the S.P.M.R., I joined the Madras
Motor Cyclists Corps and was stationed in
the Fort at Madras during the latter months
of 1914.
Ten of us sailed from Bombay
early in the New Year on board the trans-
port Caledonia, Allan line.
We changed
boats at Suez, and, before joining another
boat, spent four days in camp on shore,
with the New Zealanders and the Ceylon
Planters Rifle Corps.
Amongst the latter
I met H. A. Carlisle.
Being entrenched
on the Suez Canal is not very exciting I
fancy, and he wished very much he was
coming to France with me.
Our stay on
board our next ship was very short—only
one day ; we were put ashore at Port Said,
and after being billeted there for five days,
left for England on the P. and O. mail boat
Kaiseri-Hind.
We were granted two days
leave in England, and then crossed to
France on the Southampton packet, and at
last, after some nine weeks of travelling,
started work as dispatch riders. Just after
landing in France, I met W. H a l l ; I was
very glad to see him and believe that he
has since gone up to the trenches. Dispatch
riding is very tame just now, but should
liven up later on, at any rate I hope it will.
W i t h salaams."
L. Cumin writes a letter of which the
following is a translation :—
" Your letter arrived on the morrow of
a big engagement by our battalion, but we
had few losses. It was for me a great
pleasure as we had in front of us the
Prussian Guard, and we gave them a good
dressing-down. I am very sorry to hear
of the death of F. Bonham Burr who was
at Denstone in my time. He was a good
sportsman and there can be no doubt that
he was a valiant and brave soldier. I cannot tell you where I am because it is
against rules, but some time ago I had the
pleasure of seeing my regiment fighting
shoulder to shoulder with the brave English soldiers, men who are " aimables " and
courteous, and with whom I have had
some pleasant times. I have very often
57
had the opportunity of speaking English
i t h them, and have been able to make
myself useful to some who did not know
our language. One evening as we were
entering B., where the English were guarding the entrances to the town, my commandant, knowing that I spoke English,
asked me to find out from them the password.
I went up to them and they said, you have
only to say " friends." The brave Scots
sentinel let me pass with that single word.
Another day before Y. I was on horseback
with an English sergeant of the Engineers,
riding and chatting together. We were
between the commandant of my battalion
and the ist company, when suddenly a
French soldier in front of us began to
shout " T h e English are behind us, and we
aie cut off! "
You may imagine our
amusement. Besides pleasant times I have
had some sad ones which will, I hope, not
happen again.
A l l that I see of the
English Army recalls with pleasure my
delightful time at the great school of Denstone—a time of which I shall always
cherish a memory which could not be
happier, for if till now we have been
united by letters, arts, sciences, and work,
we are doubly united now by the blood
shed in the common cause—a dark bond
which will not be effaced, and which will
keep us united forever. My brother Henry
keeps well, like myself."
w
E. R. Almond (1904) is a Gunner in the
5th Battery of the Motor Machine Gun
Service and is at the Front.
J. C. Gurnhill is an Army Chaplain.
G. Llewelyn Jones (Feb., 1887) is
Lieut, in the R.A.M.C., and for the present
is Medical Officer in charge of the Western
Section Hospital at Cawsand for the
Plymouth Garrison.
a
D. R. Carpenter is reported a Prisoner
of War in Germany.
WAR
OBITUARY.
In the late fighting round Ypres, Rifleman
J. H. Goodyear, 6th Batt. Liverpool Regt.,
was severely wounded on A p r i l n t h and
succumbed on April 13th at Poperinghe.
He entered Denstone in 1891 and on leaving
was apprenticed with Messrs. Elder, Dempster and Co. For some years he held a
Commission in the 4th V . B . King's Liverpool Regt., but resigned on taking up his
residence for a time abroad. On the outbreak of war hs hastened to rejoin his old
regiment, and did not disdain to do so as a
Rifleman.
The Liverpool Echo says " to
all who knew him he endeared himself by
his sincere and unselfish disposition, and as
a true English Christian gentleman." One
who knew him as a boy here says that such
a description is exactly what he should have
expected him to deserve.
2nd Lieut. Bernard Craig Keble Job
came in 1897 as a very small boy and did
not stay long. After some years else'where
he went to Radley. On the outbreak of
war he enlisted in the Liverpool Scottish
as private, and on Nov. ist was gazetted
2nd Lieut, in the 3rd Batt. West Kent
Regiment.
He went out to France on
Good Friday and joined the ist Batt. of
his regiment. On April 18th he was killed
in action in the fighting at H i l l 60.
F. E. Clark of the Honorable Artillery
Company will be remembered as a good
shot while he was here and as having
enjoyed his time at the Front in an exceptional way. His letters which we have
printed showed that his one object was
to enjoy life, and to him in the circumstances the supreme joy seemed to be to
engage in set encounters with enemy
snipers. True they scored an ear once,
but Clark's skill probably gave him many
more significant successes.
From September, when he went out, he has been hard at
i t ; they were in the trenches in October.
But nothing could daunt his cheerfulness;
one of his last letters described a football
match under fire in which he took part.
He was only 17. On the last Sunday of
the holidays Mrs. Hibbert heard from h i m ;
it was on that day that he was mortally
wounded. In the serious fighting which
took place then, he was struck in the side
by shrapnel, and died in hospital on May
4th.
His company officer wrote to his
father, " I can tell you very truthfully that
all who knew him, especially his platoon,
feel that they have lost a really brave
comrade and one who kept his spirits up
through all the time he has been in the
trenches."
Lieut. Colonel Walter Lorenzo Alexander came here in 1887, and quickly reached
the Sixth, for he was a clevet boy. He
was in the Head's House, and became a
Prefect in 1889, in which year he won the
French Prize. He played for his Dormitory, but did not shine particularly in
Sports. On leaving in December, 1889 he
went to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, from whence he passed out 16th
with Honours. He joined the 2nd Batt.
of tha Yorkshire Regiment, the " Princess
of Wales's O w n " in 1892. He served
with his regiment in the Tirah campaign
of 1897-8, and took part in the capture of
the Sampaghaand Arhanga passes, and he
also took part in the reconnaisance of the
Saran Sar and the action of Nov. 9, 1897,
in the operations round Dwatol, against
Khani Kel Chamkunis and in the Bazar
Valley, gaining the medal with two clasps.
It is characteristic of his modesty that in
the particulars he supplied for The Denstone Register he said nothing about his
distinguished services or his medal. In
1900 he became Captain and in 190"
Major. When war broke out last Augus
the Commandant and the Second in Com
mand were both i l l , and he was sent r
command to Guernsey. When his regi
ment went to France he was with it unt'
he was wounded in the first battle of Ypr
last October, but as soon as he recovere
went back to the Front, and led his regi
ment with great gallantry in the hard figh'
ing of Neuve Chapelle in March.
Si
Douglas Haig thought so highly of him a,
a leader, that he gave him temporary com'
mand of the 21st Brigade, 7th Division.
He was killed in the recent fighting roun
the position where he was previousl
wounded on May 14.
Frank Cuthbert White, who was kille
on May 13th, was a singularly attractive boy who only recently left. He cam
in 1908, and showed excellence in al
departments. He was more than ordinarily
clever, and excelled in all sports. As an
actor, few who saw his renderingof Hermia,
will forget his awakening :
Help me, Lysandcr, help me ! Do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast.
It is easy to overpraise a boy's efforts.
But A Midsummer Night's Dream was
played so long ago as 1911, and the writer
still remembers how he stood in the wings
entranced by this piece of acting. It was
the same with everything he took in hand.
He put his best into everything and therefore he did excellently in all.
Of his
affectionate and winsome character one
must not speak much; we can only re-
59
member with profound thankfulness that
again and again in his letters from the
front he spoke of his gratitude to Denstone ;
how lie " tried to remember what he had
5 n taught here"—few words of much
meaning. He went out with the Leicester
Yeomanry longago,and almost immediately
came the great German first onslaught
on Ypres. Quite unexpectedly they were
rushed up to support the Guards, and had
been with them ever since. / I t was in the
second battle of Ypres that he was killed, on
Ascension Day. The Leicesters' trenches
were bombarded for three hours with the
utmost fury, and then the Germans made
an attack in force. ThiDgs were going
badly when Major Martin called for volunteers to hold a trench. Frank White was
one who responded, and he faced the
German rush as cool and steady as if on
parade. Some of them got into the trench,
and Frank White, though he fought a
splendid fight, was killed. His SergeantMajor said it was "a.glorious death " : that
is how Frank White died—it was a fitting
end to a good life.
e e
It is very difficult to write of the death
of Lancelot Graham Harris. His loss
alone would justify the Head's remark that
the war had already claimed our best. He
came here in 1908 and from then until he
left in 1913 it is not too much to say that
we all admired hisability in work and sports;
and we all rejoiced in his cheerfulness.
He was certainly one of the cleverest boys
we have had in recent years, and, of course,
he won a History Scholarship at Sidney
Sussex College, Cambridge. Before entering into residence he went to Berlin for the
Summer to perfect his German. His one
year at Cambridge was sufficient to impress
everybody there; work and sports again
proved congenial outlets for his ability and
cheerfulness; again he was a general
favourite. Then came the Declaration of
War and immediately he joined the Honorable Artillery Company. On Sept. 19th he
sailed for S. Nazaire. In October he went
to the Front. Of course his linguistic
abilities—for he knew both French and
German thoroughly— proved most useful,
and he could not be anything but the joy of
the company wherever he might be. But
he was something more. The following
has come into our hands. It was written
by one of the men of his company to his
own friends, and with no intention that
friends of Harris should see it. " I am
very sorry to say they killed a young fellow
named Harris, one of the old stagers of S.
Nazaire. He was frail-looking and slim
and quite a boy with an almost girlish face,
but he had the spirit of a bulldog and the
soul of a saint. The grit with which he stuck
the hardships of the winter and his continual
cheeriness and helping of others, when
he was almost done up himself, used to
make me proud to be in the regiment with
him. When a spirit of such temper as that
of young Harris is lost from among us, I
tell you it leaves a very big gap indeed."
His own Platoon Commander said " his
bravery was absolutely magnificent; he
was perfectly splendid all the way through
—thoroughly keen, and willing to do anything."
It was in the big fighting at Ypres that
he was killed. On the evening of April
27 he was brought in unconscious, with
both legs broken. He died the next day.
In his pocket was found a letter to his
father and mother, written many weeks
before, full of affectionate gratitude for all
they had done for him, especially mentioning Denstone and Cambridge, and looking
forward to the meeting in the next life.
6o
THE
2nd Lieut. Dudley Charles James Copland, Sherwood Foresters, is a good example of the fine way in which young business
men nourish the true spirit of patriotism.
He left here in Dec. 1912, for business in
London. But he did not neglect his duty
to the country, and he joined the Artists'
Rifles. Here he had been a keen shot,
and at Bisley made a famous score
in the Cadet Pair, and after leaving
school he was remarkably successful in
shooting: the number of shooting cups and
trophies which he won was very large.
He was out for several months before he
obtained a commission, and when the
honour came it was in the fine regiment
to which so many Denstonians have
belonged, and still belong. He was killed
on May 9 at Aubers.
Lieut. Arthur Temple Railton, 4th (T.)
Seaforth Highlanders, was killed in action
in Northern France, on May 9th, aged 24.
He came here in May, 1903, but left in
1906 to go to Oundle with a scholarship.
Later he passed to Glasgow University,
where he obtained the B.Sc. degree in
naval architecture.
He was reported
" wounded and missing " on May 9th, and
" killed " on the 14th.
His commanding
officer w r i t e s : — " H e laid down his life
gallantly, leading his men in a charge for
the enemy's trenches, and has died asoldier's
death. He has been laid to rest in the
Military Cemetery at Vielle Chapelle."
His promotion to temporary lieutenant
on November ist, 1914, was announced
only the day before he died.
It seems that he was first wounded in the
leg, and sent word by another wounded man
that he was all right.
The fire was so
terrific that it was impossible to reach him.
Later on he was mortally wounded by
shrapnel in the neck. His body could not
be found for some time, but was brought in
several days afterwards.
DENSTONIAN.
O.T.C.
Lieut. B. H. Whitley was kind enough
to act as Judge in the Dormitory Section
Competition and all gratitude is due to him
for the unfailing care he showed in carrying
out the work.
The first part was taken on March 24th
and 26th, and resulted in Meynell being
placed first with 81 marks. In the turnout, points were lost by most dormitories for
dirty boots and badly wrapped puttees.
Rifle exercises were smartly done, but there
was general weakness in the detail of the
' p o r t ' and ' present.' The firing positions
were disappointing. They are of first
importance and should have been more
carefully prepared. A high standard was
reached in platoon drill. Dormitory commanders should insist on steadiness; only
one platoon, Selwyn, was really steady.
The second part of the competition—
tactical handling—was taken on Saturday,
March 27th. A short trench was sited
under the clump of beech trees on the way
to Wooton Lodge and each dormitory had
to attack this from a distance of 800 yards.
The attack was very well carried out by
Selwyn, Meynell and Head's i.
In order to make the best possible
use of the ground in an attack, a commander
should always make as complete a reconnaissance as possible before deciding on his
dispositions. As soon as each dormitory
commander heard the scheme of the
attack, he should have sent out scouts with
definite instructions.
For this work the
most intelligent men should be chosen. A
careful reconnaissance would have shewn
that it was possible to advance to within
100 yards of the trench in dead ground.
Too much stress cannot be laid upon the
importance of mutual support in an attack
over open ground. Sections can advance
only when they are supported by rapid fire
from the sections on their flanks and before
an attack begins adjacent section com-
JUNE,
manders should always arrange signals with
each other for supporting fire. This was
y well done by Selwyn. Most dormitories made the serious mistake of firing
when they were in dead ground and could
not see the target. This was a sheer waste
of ammunition. In short rushes, cadets
must get up and go down together and
must make the best use of any cover the
ground may offer. There was room for
improvement here but the faults were probably due to the large number of recruits
in the various platoons. The most pleasing
and promising feature in the series of
attacks was the great keenness of platoon
and section commanders.
The final order was Meynell, 162;
Head's i. and Selwyn, 161 ; Head's i i . , 151 ;
Lowe, 145; Head's i i i . , 142 ; Woodard,
133 ; Shrewsbury, 130.
The following appointments have been
j — P l a t o o n Sergeants Webb and Hayward to be Second Lieutenants ; Sergeants
Wilson and Hope to be Platoon Sergeants.
Promotions.—Corporals Sykes, Horsfield and Lance-Corporal Briggs to be
Sergeants ; Privates Weigall, Collis, Laithwaite and Lindop to be Lance-Corporals.
There are twenty recruits this term who
are making steady progress under Second
Lieutenant Webb and Company SergeantMajor Knight.
v e r
m a c
e :
THE
SPORTS.
This year there were two things which
tended to make Sports Day a little unlike
its real self: firstly, the weather was fine :
secondly, owing to the war, winners received
certificates instead of prizes. The winners
of the events were as follows.
Kicking Competition {open).—ist, W . H .
M. North-Cox ; 2nd, W. V. Clark.
1915.
61
Kicking Competition {under 15).—ist,
J. H. Whittles; 2nd, W. E. Wilson.
One Mile "Age" Handicap.—ist, J.J.
Boothroyd ; 2nd, A. G. Tobias ; 3rd, C. K.
Hope.
One Mile {open).— ist, C. K. Hope ; 2nd,
A. G. Tobias; 3rd, S. H. L a r k a m ; 4th,
R. W. Peel. Time—5 mins. 22f sees.
Throwing the Cricket Ball {open).—
ist, H. E. Baness ; 2nd, H. Collis. 81 yds.
2 ft.
Throwing the Cricket Ball {under 15).—
ist, F. Stott; 2nd, D. F. Ferguson.
66 yds. 2 ft.
120 Yards Hurdle Race {under 15).—
ist, G. E. Sharp; 2nd, F. B. Jeffries.
Half-Mile {open).—ist, C. K. Hope; and,
A. G. Tobias and H. A. Peacock.
100 Yards {open).—ist, A. W. Wilson ;
2nd, W. M. North-Cox; 3rd, H. Collis.
Time—1 if sees.
100 Yards {under 15).—ist, J. Whittles ;
2nd, E. Finney; 3rd, F. B. Jeffries.
Long Jump.—ist, H. Collis; 2nd, C.
Reynolds. 16 ft. gf ins.
Long Jump {under 15).—ist, G. E.
Sharp ; 2nd, E. C. Warren.
Choir Race.—ist, R. Seddon ; 2nd, J. N.
Nason.
T20 Yards Hurdle Eace {open).—ist,
A . W . W i l s o n ; 2nd, W . M . North-Cox.
Time—21 sees.
Quarter-Mile Handicap
{under
15).—
ist, C. J. Buckley; 2nd, P. H. Davies ;
3rd, F. E. Davies and J. Shirlaw.
High Jump {open).—ist, C. Loveday;
2nd, H. E. Baness. 4 ft. g|ins.
High Jump {under 15).—ist, G. Sharp ;
2nd, F. Jeffries.
Quarter-Mile {open).—ist, A. G. Tobias;
2nd, H. Collis ; 3rd, H. A. Peacock. Time
— 6 i £ sees.
One Mile Steeplechase {under 16).—
ist, R. Coverdale ; 2nd, J. Padmore ; 3rd,
N. Pattison ; 4th, W. H a l l .
62
THE
DENSTONIAN.
Two
Mile
Steeplechase
(open).—ist,
C. K. Hope; 2nd, R. W. Peel; 3rd, C.
Loveday ; 4th, W. M. North-Cox.
The Challenge Cup was won by C. K.
Hope and the Dormitory Challenge Cup
was won by Meynell with 180 points. We
are very much indebted to Mrs. Huskinson
for her kindness in presenting the certificates to the winners.
The heartiness
with which she was cheered showed how
her action was appreciated.
O.D.
NEWS.
G. L. Marriott has gained the Ellerton
Essay Prize at Oxford, and has received
the fi.D. degree.
G. L. Marriott has gone to Cuddesden.
B. Holloway is playing the Duke of
Guise in Mr. Fred Terry's new production
of Henry of Navarre.
J. W. Cheshire was ordained deacon
in the Diocese of Southwell on Trinity
Sunday.
C. a. B. Williams has written and had
performed two trios for piano, violin and
cello, which have been very well spoken of.
He is now, in the midst of his military
duties, writing a seiies of •' Impressions "
for the pianoforte for a London publishing
house. His method is to try to express the
" m o o d " of certain places in music, and
Wootten Lodge is one of the places he has
chosen.
We regret to hear of the death of
W i l l i a m James Crampton, at the age of
38. He came in Sept., 1887, and was in
the Meynell Dormitory. He left in Dec.
1892, and went into business in Sheffield
He died on April 6.—R.I.P.
G. E. Jackson is Secretary to the Ontario
Commission on Unemployment.
He
writes :—
The delivery of the O.D. Chronicle this ]
morning has inspired me to write you. I
am glad our fellows are doing so well. The
death of Brownfield is a sad loss. I well
remember his innings in the O.D. match,
his last speech day at Denstone, when
Lodge and Gooch ran together to catch his
b a l l , and collided in a Catherine-wheel, each
getting a slight concussion of the brain.
Gedge was drowned on the Amphion, but
I do not see any record of this in the
Chronicle,
So far as I know there are no Old
Denstonians in Toronto. I think it would
be a good idea if somewhere you kept a
record of the senior O.D. in each Canadian
city, so that we could get in touch with one
another. Haycock is the only Canadian
O.D. across whose tracks I run, since I
know the man who lives on the fruit-farm
next to his.
Our students are responding well to the
call for men. I suppose we have sent 500
to the war by now. Twenty went off two
days ago with a single battery of field
artillery. I think another 300 will go as
soon as our academic year is finished. The
professional courses—law and medicine—
volunteer badly, b u t the others are as keen
as mustard.
Here, we blather a great deal about our
part in the war, rather more than we should
do. Of the first 60,000 troops recruited, at
least 40,000 were English. The Canadian
shop-keeper and artisan does not as yet feel
called on to enlist. It is only the better
class who jumped to arms right away. I
63
know very few young unmarried Canadians
who are fit, and do not intend to go.
But
for the plebs., the war is just a spectacle.
However, it is circenses without the bread
which once accompanied the games. Business here is very bad, and all the winter we
have had 20,000—30,000 unemployed in
this city. The Council has temporised and
bungled in the most criminal fashion. The
Provincial Government has appointed the
body, whose names grace this letter head,
to report on the situation and devise a
remedy.
As I am still holding my job at
the University, you may gather that the
last three months have been busy. A l l the
Commissioners are old enough to be my
fathers, but for the most part they are
magnificent men, and treat me with far
more consideration than my youth demands.
My impression is, that more than half of
the destitute cases in Toronto are English—
which is a melancholy fact.
It is a most
difficult situation, complicated of course,
by the uncertainties of peace and war.
I
wish my eye-sight were better, and I could
have gone over and done my share in
Belgium, but meanwhile, we may do something useful in our way."
NOTES.
The following left last term for Commissions in the Sherwood Foresters:—F. J.
Mellor, W. H . M . North-Cox, P.E. Burrows
and R. F. Young.
E. G. H. Bates has been awarded one
of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Missionary Exhibitions at Cambridge.
Robinson, Weigall and Williams have
been made Prefects.
Barnes and Glaisby have gained their
ist X I . Colours.
The Dormitory Musical Competition
last term ended in favour of Meynell.
The list of new boys is as follows :
Atkinson, Theodore St. Barbe Meynell
Brighton, Eric James
Shrewsbury
Brown, Eric Pelham
Woodard
Burr, Lawrence Geoffrey
Woodard
Christian, John
W'oodard
Clappen, Archibald Jack
Shrewsbury
Dicker, John Hamilton
Preparatory
Dicker, Ernest George
Hamilton
Preparatory
Favell, W i l l i a m
Head's i i .
Forsyth, Albert Alexander
Woodard
Garman, Bernard Anchitel
Preparatory
Garman, Reginald Curtis
Preparatory
Haddock, Frederick Thorpe Preparatory
Hamilton, Ian Moffatt
Head's i i .
Holton, Leo
Preparatory
Holloway, Geoffrey Norman Lowe
Jackson, W i l f r i d Hall
Selwyn
Jackson, Edmund Hall
Selwyn
James, Richard Houghton
Preparatory
Kimbell, Eaton Robert
Woodard
Knowles, Charles Lionel
Head's i i i .
Lasbury, Percival Albert
Head's i.
Lenton, William Henry
Preparatory
Liitter, Richard Bernard
Head's i.
Liitter, George Henry
Head's i.
Liitter, Frank Theobald
Head's i.
Liitter, Denis Patrick
Head's i.
Porritt, Norman Bird
Head's i i i .
Pym, Richard Geoffrey
Lowe
Smith, Eric Charlton
Head's i i .
Thomas, Cecil James
Woodard
Walker, W i l l i a m Pinckney
Selwyn
Wallace, William John Arthur Selwyn
Wilkinson, Eric Frank
Lowe
Wynne, Frederick Gordon
Shrewsbury
F. Parker who left in July has returned,
6
4
THE
DENSTONIAN.
The latest volume of the Cambridge
County Geographies has a special interest
for us, in that it is not only on our own
County of Staffordshire, but is by the Rev.
W. B. Smith. He has effectively proved
his competency for the work, and we
shall be surprised if the volume is not
reckoned one of the best of the series. It
is written without any pretence at learning,
which is a good assurance that learning is
there. It is full of local details, and there
has been no attempt to adapt generalities
to the particular county. The illustrations
are admirably chosen. Of course we at
Denstone know that Staffordshire abounds
in beautiful scenery so we are not surprised
to find some exquisite rural scenes ; but
we are not so ready to acknowledge the
picturesqueness of the " Black Country."
But Mr. Smith has managed to find really
artistic photographs even in those unpromising districts, e.g., those of Blast Furnaces (p. 54), and a canal (p. 101), and
several pottery interiors. We are proud
to see that our own Museum, of which Mr.
Smith is curator, has furnished some
admirable illustrations. Altogether it is
a book which reflects credit on Mr. Smith
and through him on Denstone, and we
congratulate him heartily on a scholarly
and complete book.
We are glad to welcome Mr. A. A.
Crompton this term.
The Treasurer of the Sports Committee
wishes to acknowledge with thanks the
receipt of the following subscriptions:
Rev. the Provost, £1 ; Rev. W. B. Wright,
5s. ; H. E. Whittles, Esq., 5s.; S. Keeling'
Esq., 5s.
The Editor wishes to acknowledge with
thanks the receipt of :—Felstedian, Marlburian, Brighton College Magazine,S.S.M.
Quarterly,
Reptonian,
Framlinghamian,
Giggleswick Chronicle, Liverpool College
Magazine, King Edward VI. Grammar
Scliool Magazine, Lancing College Magazine, Merchistonian, Hurst Johnian, S.
Edward's School Chronicle, Eastbournian,
Blue, Elstonian, Ardingly Annals, Cuthbertian,
Cottoniau, Olavian,
S. Joint's
College Magazine (Johannesburg), Armidalian.
The yearly subscription of 3s. 4d. (or 10s.
for three years), should be sent to the
Treasurer, Denstone College, Staffordshire.
A l l MS. intended for insertion must be
written on one side of the paper only, and
forwarded to the Editor, P. H. Sykes,
Denstone College, Staffordshire.